Civic engagement in creating future cities

This paper describes how most global U.N. Conferences have failed to address the causes of the problems they are discussing - especially the inappropriate institutional framework where the imperatives of the ''money world'' take precedence over the living world of people and where control over productive resources is increasaingly wrested away from local people and communities (and governments) by large and generally unaccountable corporations. It also describes the routes to a more just and sustainable society, and how civic society must reclaim the power it is losing to the money world. This includes the ways in which the United Nations Habitat II Conference can and should align itself with this process.